16 Book Club Questions for Tom Lake

Is Tom Lake your next book club pick? These book club questions for Tom Lake will get the conversation started!

Tom Lake, the 2023 novel by Ann Patchett, is a gorgeous book about the stories we tell our families (and ourselves) about our own pasts.

Set in a beautiful cherry orchard, the novel follows Lara, her husband Joe, and her three daughters, Emily, Maisie, and Nell. The three girls are questioning their mother about her previous career as an actor, and the novel jumps back and forth between these two timelines.

Patchett is an evocative writer, and this is the perfect book if you love stories that explore family dynamics and the power of nostalgia for the past.

If it’s you’re ready to kickstart a discussion, here are sixteen book club questions for Tom Lake.

Tom Lake Book Club Questions

The book opens with Lara’s first experience with Our Town, a 1938 play by Thornton Wilder. The play is significant in Lara’s life and the whole novel, and in a note at the end of the book, Patchett suggests reading Our Town next.

Have you ever seen or read Our Town? If so, what do you think? If not, do you plan to read it now?

The story revolves around Lara and her three daughters as she tells them about her life before they were born.

What did you think of this storytelling technique? Did it work for you in this book?

Lara has three daughters: Emily, Maisie, and Nell. They’re all very different from each other: Emily, the eldest, is set to inherit the family farm. Maisie is a student vet. Nell, the youngest, dreams of having an acting career herself.

Which daughter did you relate the most to? Would you like to find out more about any of them?

Early in Lara’s career, she meets Peter Duke, a charming, charismatic actor. Their relationship is intense and will have an unexpected impact on Lara’s life in years to come.

What did you think of their relationship and of Duke as a character?

Emily has a curious obsession with Duke; fascinated with him from childhood, she firmly believes that Duke is her real father, much to the hurt of her parents. Telling Emily the truth is part of the reason why Lara begins to tell the story in the first place.

What did you think of Emily’s stubborn belief in Duke? Do you think she changed as a character in the end?

Tom Lake is set during the Covid-19 pandemic, with the entire family sheltering on the farm as the world goes into lockdown.

‘I finally put an end to the television being on in the evening because after we watched it, none of us slept.‘ (p25)

They use the opportunity to talk about things they have never spoken of before, and they all grow closer as a result.

How did the Nelson family’s pandemic experience compare to yours? Did you have similar conversations with your own family during the lockdowns?

The setting of the cherry farm is hugely important in the novel; it acts as a safe haven for Lara, Joe, and her daughters, and later, we see old characters drawn to the farm for comfort, too.

How do you think growing up on the farm affected all three daughters?

Lara’s husband, Joe, is quiet and stoic. We don’t see as much of him in the story, but he comes across as loyal and patient.

What do you think of Joe’s character? Would you have liked to see more of him?

Acting and farming are both integral to Lara’s life. There is a nice exchange on p.167:

‘Farming is depressing,’ Joe said. ‘But once it gets in you, you can’t put it down.’

‘Farming is the new acting,’ Duke said. 

This is a neat bit of foreshadowing for Lara’s life.

What did you think of Lara’s choice to give up acting? Do you think she would have given up even if she hadn’t had an injury at the wrong moment?

On page 164, we get an interjection in italics, which appears to be Lara ‘talking’ to Maisie, the previous owner of the farm. In the novel, we get a lot of wistful thinking about the past: obviously, Lara can’t talk to Maisie anymore in reality.

How do you think Lara felt retelling all this to her family? Do you think it was easy for her to dig up these memories?

‘I look at my girls, my brilliant young women. I want them to think I was better than I was, and I want to tell them the truth in case the truth will be useful. These two desires do not neatly coexist, but this is where we are in the story.’ (p240)

If you had to retell your own past to your own children, would you lean toward telling the truth, or would you want to airbrush past events?

Building on from this, we get a pretty big revelation about Lara right near the end of the book, something that she chooses to keep from her daughters.

Do you agree with this decision? If you were Lara, would you have told your daughters everything?

On p253, we get this nugget from Lara: ‘The past need not be so all-encompassing that it renders us incapable of making an egg salad.’

Do you think Lara’s ability to focus on the practical task at hand has always been innate in her? How much of this comes from Lara’s upbringing and personality, and how much of it comes from having worked on a farm for so long?

Things don’t end so well for Duke – despite having such a hold on Lara (and Emily) for so long, his status is definitely weakened by the end. Duke gets to see Lara’s new life near the end of the novel.

Do you think Duke was jealous? Do you think he ever would have wanted a quiet life with Lara?

Sebastian, Duke’s brother, is a fascinating character. In some ways, he is the most supportive of Lara from her group of actor friends, but he also abandons her eventually, leaving her hurt and bewildered.

What did you think of Sebastian’s character? Would you like to have seen more of him?

Ultimately, Tom Lake is a novel about a mother and her daughters. The daughters have to learn about who their mother was before she had them, even if it doesn’t exactly match their own perceptions of her.

Did you like the mother-daughter relationship as it is portrayed in Tom Lake? Have you read any similar novels that explore these themes?

Hopefully, these book club questions for Tom Lake have facilitated an interesting discussion!

If you enjoyed this book, you might enjoy Patchett’s other work, including The Dutch House (2019), The Magician’s Assistant (1997), and The Patron Saint of Liars (1992).

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Megan Bidmead

Guest writer

Megan is a freelance writer based in Somerset, England. When she’s not writing about books, video games, and pop culture, she’s running around after her two kids and trying to squeeze in the occasional walk in the countryside.